Sustainability Focused Policy Internship (China focus)

Location:  UK, if based in or near London, office attendance would be desirable

Duration/Hours: 6 months with 1-2 days per week (can work flexibly around studies or other commitments)

Start date: November 2024

Wage: London Living Wage (£13.15 per hour) See internship programme document for further details. Please read ISEAL Internship Programme for more information 

ISEAL is offering an exciting opportunity for a part-time internship in its Policy & Engagement team to get insights in a sustainability focused policy setting and support the work on China. The internship provides valuable learning across a range of administrative, logistics, and research support.

ISEAL supports sustainability standards and similar market-based sustainability systems to improve their impacts on people and planet.

The ISEAL Policy and Engagement team focuses on understanding the latest policies from around the world to support governments and businesses to achieve greater sustainable development outcomes. The Policy and Engagement team's key goal is to support achievement of ISEAL’s strategic objectives around credibility and the role of voluntary sustainability standards and related systems by working with policy-makers and businesses and those that influence them. We also track and analyse emerging policy issues of relevance to ISEAL and its Community, build partnerships and engage in outreach to support ISEAL’s engagement goals of broadening the applicability of ISEAL’s credibility tools and supporting effective use of credible sustainability systems.

In China in recent years, policy makers and business leaders have been increasingly focusing on green and high-quality growth and China's role in developing and using sustainability standards and guidelines to support this development approach. Through technical expertise aligned to economic trends and policy priorities, ISEAL is keen to support Chinese standard setters, policy makers and other stakeholders as they grasp opportunities to use and manage credible sustainability standards to achieve important goals like greening trade and finance, and strengthening sustainable production and consumption.

The ideal intern candidate will bring existing skills in research, show good organisation ability and, ideally, have relevant language skills and a keen interest in policy and trade issues, especially pertaining to the Chinese context. We are looking for someone who is versatile, with good people and communication skills and comfortable working in a dynamic environment with multiple tasks and activities to support.

Key learning areas we will offer:

As intern you will report into the Policy & Outreach Manager and play an active part in ISEAL´s activities involving China and Chinese stakeholders:

• Support quarterly China-focused ISEAL community member meetings, including preparation work for the meeting, logistics, setting up slides, taking notes and help address any follow up actions
• Participate in meetings with organisations as part of ongoing collaboration, including any logistics, note taking and support follow up actions
• Help identify relevant stakeholders and ways of supporting their sustainability goals
• Support on general administration of policy and engagement work
• Depending on Chinese language skills, help review translations of materials in simplified Chinese
• Join policy and engagement team meeting for exposure to wider policy work at ISEAL

Competencies required

• Good organisational and administrative skills, including ability to schedule meetings, set up virtual calls, take notes and keep information up to date
• Good time management and ability to organise multiple simultaneous tasks efficiently with good attention to detail
• Excellent written & spoken English, with proven ability to write clearly and concisely
• Comfortable communicating with international stakeholders in online and in person setting (e.g. webinars, workshops etc)
• Confidence in using the Microsoft Office suite, familiarity with virtual meeting tools (e.g. MS Teams, Zoom, etc)
• Academic or other background in policy, politics or sustainability
• Interest in social, environmental, and economic sustainability
• Ideally, mandarin speaker with native fluency and with ability to read simplified Chinese at advanced level
• If language proficiency in Mandarin / Chinese is at lower level, in-depth knowledge of Chinese political landscape may be sufficient

Additionally desirable

• Some understanding of, sustainability standards and certification, which may have been gained in academic, internship, employment or voluntary settings

About ISEAL

ISEAL supports ambitious sustainability systems and their partners to tackle the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges – from the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis to human rights and persistent poverty. ISEAL Community Members include many of the most respected sustainability schemes worldwide and are active across a diverse range of sectors. Read more about us on our website. 

ISEAL´s culture and how we will help you thrive

Our values are Connection, Empowerment, Inspiration, Wellbeing, Effective Working and Creativity.

These are traits we value in each other and in the organisation overall and we instil these in all our processes and interactions.

The issues we work on are of a global nature and our team reflects this, with individuals from many different backgrounds and nationalities. We know this diversity adds to the high quality of work we deliver as an organisation and through our commitment to diversity and inclusion we want to add strengths and perspectives in our team with each recruitment. Diversity for us includes race and gender identity, age, disability status, sexual orientation, religion and many other areas forming part of someone´s identity. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer.

How to apply

Deadline for applications: open but with first interviews in from mid-October

Enquiries about the role can be directed to recruitment(@)isealalliance(.)org.

Please note we will not individually contact applicants unless they are shortlisted for interview.

Interview process

Please see below the planned interview process (please note that we will endeavor to keep to this schedule, but some dates may be subject to change)

First interviews (Teams): ongoing

Pre-interview timed exercises (between 45 minutes from home): w/c 21 October

Panel interviews (Teams or in person): w/c 21 October or w/c 4 November

Decision: by 18 November

Accessibility

If candidates required additional time or other considerations for the interview process, we are committed to accommodating any reasonable requests.

Please note that ISEAL will cover travel expenses for in person interviews for candidates travelling from outside of Greater London. ISEAL also covers caring expenses for candidates who are carers and need to arrange of cover for the duration of the interview/exercises